


Suffocating loneliness

by reunahana



Category: Suzerain (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Subnautica AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28428462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reunahana/pseuds/reunahana
Summary: Anton struggles with problems far beyond his control in the middle of the night. Lucian's there to help him calm down.Unconsciousness doesn't sound like such a bad option in his situation, honestly.
Relationships: Lucian Galade/Anton Rayne
Kudos: 3





	Suffocating loneliness

_ Warning: emergency power only. Oxygen production offline. _

  
  


Anton wakes gasping for breath. He feels like he’s suffocating, and so he draws in breaths with hungry gulps. He’s in a room, tangled up in sheets. It’s dark around him, and he tries his best to get his bearings. The room seems to sway from side to side. It’s dizzying.

Anton’s still breathing raggedly when he notes a pair of arms wrapping around him and a soothing, soft voice coming from right next to him. He turns around and sees Lucian, and something in him shifts, an odd calm washing over him.

“Anton? What’s wrong?” Lucian’s resting his hands on Anton’s back, slowly tracing circles and other simple patterns. Maybe an infinity sign? Anton’s not entirely sure, he’s still far too concentrated on trying to calm down his breathing. He’s pretty sure doing that is important. God, he feels light-headed. He doesn’t feel like he can muster up an answer right now, so he says nothing, just stares at the ground at the foot of their bed while his breathing slows down.

“Another nightmare?” Lucian asks, and he just nods. “Was it the same old thing again?” Anton shakes his head, but only a bit to avoid further dizziness.

Lucian stays silent aside from a gentle humming, leaning closer to press kisses on Anton’s shoulders, trailing up to the crook of his neck and eventually his cheeks, kissing away tear stains- wait, he’d been crying? He certainly hadn’t realised that before, but he supposes it makes sense that he has.

Eventually, he’s found his voice enough to start talking. The first few sounds from his mouth are barely anything more than broken whines, and he takes a few more breaths in for good measure. Lucian’s by his side, still holding him tightly, shushing him down softly and promising that it’s all okay now. It helps, honestly. Lucian always helps. “It’s okay, take as much time as you need.”

“It started out as.. as a normal enough dream I guess?” he starts, and god he wishes it had stayed that way. “I was in a ship, out on its journey to beyond the stars. But we crashed on this planet, filled with oceans.”

Lucian hums in contemplation, pulling Anton closer and into his chest before pulling them both back down onto the bed.

“I didn’t drown, if that’s where you think the dream went, but.. the place was so weird.”

Once Anton actually gets going, there’s nothing that stops him. It’s all quite blurry by now, but he remembers some smaller details quite vividly. Colorful little fish and birdlike rays soaring the skies, giant electric eels and the roaring motors of a crashed starship and predators longer than submarines with angry red mandibles. Huge underwater mushroom trees and floating glowing blue balls anchored to the seafloor, impossible islands and the hauntingly beautiful songs of light blue rays and purple mushrooms in a cave with snakes hidden inside, waiting to ambush their prey and old rusted habitats, broken open by something and moving metal structures fashioned to maintain security and an infection spreading through his body and what appeared to be a massive underwater river in a cavern, and…

...and a cave to the side of the cavern, with metal structures acting as a doorway, opening into a small space with roots on the cave walls, with a thing outside the doorway.

Anton’s retelling of his fading memories has been more of a ramble than anything else, but Lucian has listened dutifully, waiting until Anton got to the end. When Anton finishes, Lucian presses a kiss to the top of his head and presses him close. Anton breathes in the scent of Lucian, and that calms him down a fair amount.

“And what happened at the end, do you know?” he asks, carding his fingers through Anton’s hair and using his other hand to still rub Anton’s back. Anton, in return, reaches up and traces his fingers across Lucian’s face, across his beard and his jawline, stops for a second to circle the scar, then moves up to Lucian’s hair as well, enjoying the slight waviness of it. It’s like he’s committing every little detail of Lucian into his memory, Anton muses to himself. Then again, that is pretty much what he’s doing.

“No, I don’t know. I’m just here now.” he admits. And there’s no place he’d rather be.

“Hmmm.” Lucian kisses him again, this time on the lips, and when they break apart Anton feels breathless again. But this is a good kind of breathless, he decides. Everything’s okay now. Lucian’s here.

Curled up in Lucian’s arms he allows his breathing to slow down more. He’s safe and sound in the arms of the man he loves, feeling warm and fuzzy and comfortable right where he is. He feels content, happy, and the terrors of that planet and that dreadful cave are far behind him now.

“Go to sleep, Anton. You deserve it more than anyone out there. I’ll be here for you when you wake up.”

And that is the only thing Anton needs to hear, all the permission he needs to finally relax and just give in to sleep. So he does, curling closer still to Lucian.

“Goodnight, Lucian. I love you.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ blip blip. _

_ Oxygen. _


End file.
